Pong: The Great Adventure
by I am not a number 26
Summary: In the land of Pong, a legend is born...
1. The legend begins

"Oh no!" Paddle Dan shouted as the ball was flung to the bottom half of the screen. "I am doomed!"  
  
There was a silent pause, and then the sound that Paddle Dan dreaded.  
  
Boop.  
  
As the game ended, the Ancient Pong Master waddled up to Paddle Dan, just in the way one would expect a vertical line to walk.  
  
"You still have much to learn, young Grasshopper, about Pong-Fu. You confidently slung the ball to the top of the screen, expecting me to return it in the standard fashion. Your eyes were blind to the SPIN I put on the ball. It was that that was your defeat."  
  
"I am sorry, Pong Master! I was overconfident! Forgive me!" "It is not I that must forgive you, it is you that must forgive you. You must be ready for the Grand Pong-Fu tournament that is to be held in one week. Now let us practice again."  
  
As the screen faded back to a dark scoreboard and the ball hung in the center of the screen, Paddle Dan thought back to the years he had been training with the Ancient Pong Master. He has always been a failure in the Pong Master's eyes, having been raised an orphan with little enough money left by his parents, it seemed, to invest in his training. Dan never knew his parents, or even if he had any. His oldest memory was the Ancient Pong Master teaching him about corner shots. He also had little skill, and had not yet defeated the Ancient Pong Master in all his years of training. The Master was getting old, ever so much more than twenty. He did not have long left to teach Dan what he knew.  
  
"Someday," Dan thought, "I will be the greatest Pong player of all! Now I must PROVE it to the old bat! Huy-YA!"  
  
The game begun as the ball zoomed toward Dan. He caught it with his corner and it went flying up. It bounced off of the ceiling and headed straight for the Ancient Pong Master's wall.  
  
Like lightning, the Ancient Pong Master flew down and deflected the ball with a mighty spin! It bounced off the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor, and on and on and on!  
  
Paddle Dan did not know what to expect! Where would the ball end up? Thinking quickly, he followed the ball, up, and down, up, and down, until it got closer and closer and.  
  
PING! Dan reflected it with his very corner, traveling upward quickly! The ball streaked forward fast and.  
  
Boop.  
  
DAN HAD WON! He started jumping for joy, nearly leaping off of his single vertical plane. The screen faded away as he continued his victory dance.  
  
But all was not right.  
  
The Ancient Pong Master lay in the corner, breathing heavily. Dan rushed in a rather awkward way horizontally over to him.  
  
"You are re.ady. you have truly defeated me, and all of my skill is yours. Now it is my time to pass on."  
  
"No, Ancient Pong Master! Where will I go without you?"  
  
"Go. to the competition. and win. make a name for yourself. my. grandson."  
  
His breathing ceased, and a terrible echo of his final breath filled the lonely dojo.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED? 


	2. The mysterious Shinhoshi

Paddle Dan breathed a heavy sigh as he strode down the path through the mysterious forest, feeling the wind at his back. The icy breeze bit into his y-axis, making him hyper-aware of the rough edges at the top and bottom of his rectangular shape.  
  
Dan had been travelling for almost twenty-four hours now, leaving his old dojo not an hour after the passing of the Ancient Pong Master. Thoughts of his former master flew about through Dan's head, bringing a tear to the front one of his two faces.  
  
"My grandfather. . . i've never known any of my family, and now. . . he's gone. Why didn't he ever tell me? i feel so. . . so foolish." Dan's thought process would have continued, had it not been for the rumbling noise that emitted from the center of his squarish red abdomen. Dan stopped and pulled a small cloth bag from his back, unfolding it onto the ground. From it he removed eight small yellow dots, the staple diet of the two-dimensional hero, and one larger power pill, given to him years ago by The Anc-. . . his grandfather. His grandfather had told him never to use it except in a drastic emergency, and Dan planned to keep it safe until it was needed.  
  
Eating two of the dots, Paddle Dan placed the power pill in his pocket. He laid back on the grass, slowly allowing his eyes to succumb more and more to the weight that had slowly accumulated on his eyes over the course of the last twenty-four hours. He was about to drift off into a deep slumber when he caught movement in the bushes out of the corner of his trained eye.  
  
Someone - something was there.  
  
Dan sat up, looking around wildly. What had he seen? He had just begun to think it was a passing gorilla, or perhaps a ghost, when he heard from behind him - "Greetings, traveller."  
  
Dan spun around like lightning to see a mysterious blue paddle behind him, decorated with a red sash about his waist. The blue paddle continued talking. "Perhaps you would wish to share some of your food with me."  
  
Dan replied, "I'm sorry, i have little enough to make it to the grand Pong- Fu tournament. I would share, but i simply cannot spare my dots. Would you like me to help you forage some food for you?"  
  
"FOOL!" The blue paddle yelled with a tense tone of a threat. "You will share your food with me, or i shall destroy you! I challenge you!!!" Before Paddle Dan could say another word, the blue paddle had jumped back and summoned the dark screen of a Pong-fu match. The blue paddle threw a ball into the center of the screen.  
  
Dan sensed something strange about the ball. He could not quite place it, but it _was_ regulation size, and thus the match was legal, whether Dan liked it or not. "Prepare to be defeated," the blue paddle mocked, "by SHINHOSHI THE PONG-FU MASTER!"  
  
The match was on. The ball immediately began moving toward Dan, who deflected it with relative ease. Shinhoshi already seemed to know exactly where the ball was going to be, and he moved into the correct position immediately to reflect the ball back at Dan. The ball bounced off of the wall of the arena, sending it back faster than before. Dan didn't need to think twice to immediately reflect the ball, putting a spin on it, and sending it quickly back at Shinhoshi with a tricky angle.  
  
Shinhoshi nearly missed the ball, hitting it only with his very corner. A scowl appeared on his face, and his grim determination doubled. "Now you must face my true power. ACTIVATE WIND!"  
  
Immediately the wind stopped blowing at Paddle Dan's back, and began to intensely push against him, speeding up the ball. Dan was sickened. "A powerup!? You have no honor!" Shinhoshi's only reply was a dark laugh. Dan batted the ball back toward the wind, and without even making it halfway across the arena, the wind blew the ball back at Dan. Again and again he batted it back at Shinhoshi, and again and again the ball turned back toward Dan. It was then that Dan realized just what was different about the ball.  
  
IT WAS THREE DIMENSIONAL!!!  
  
"MWAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! FEEL THE POWER OF THE UPDATED 32-BIT VERSION OF PONG, NOW AVAILABLE ON THE PLAYSTATION (tm) GAME CONSOLE, NOW AVAILABLE WHEREVER FINE GAMES ARE SOLD!" Shinhoshi yelled at Dan as he confidently backed off. "Now, fool. I'll be taking these." Shinhoshi picked up the sack of the six remaining yellow dots, and began to walk away just as the ball penetrated Dan's defense and flew into the back wall.  
  
The mysterious Shinhoshi was gone long before the sound of failure touched Paddle Dan's ears.  
  
Boop. 


End file.
